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On February 28, The Baker-Polito Administration announced affordable housing awards to support the creation of 643 new rental housing units, including 397 units of affordable housing, at nine different projects.

On February 27, 2019, Governor Baker refiled Housing Choice legislation. The bill is to further the administration’s Housing Choice Initiative, a plan to support the production of 135,000 new housing units by 2025. This bill builds on efforts undertaken last legislative session to deliver necessary, targeted zoning reform to benefit communities pursuing new housing production.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD’s) Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) has announced $1.5 million in new funding to create and relaunch a specialized training academy dedicated to preparing civil rights professionals to combat housing discrimination. Named for the Nation’s first African-American woman to hold a cabinet-level position, the Patricia R.

On February 26, the Department of Housing and Community Development and MassHousing released a Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for the third Community Scale Housing Initiative (CSHI) competition.
The Initiative provides up to $10 million in funding for projects that include 5-20 rental units, with at least 25% set aside as affordable. The funding consists of $5 million from DHCD’s Housing Stabilization Fund and a $5 million investment from MassHousing’s Opportunity Fund.

The Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) opened the Housing Choice Designation Application for 2019. Applications from communities are due by 3:00 p.m. March 14, 2019.
For more information or to access the online application, please click here.

On February 20, Mayor Walsh announced more than $26 million in awards for affordable housing developments in Boston from the Community Preservation Fund, the Department of Neighborhood Development, and the Neighborhood Housing Trust. The awards will create and preserve 515 units of housing in 10 developments in Brighton, East Boston, Dorchester, Mattapan, Mission Hill, the North End, and Roxbury.

On February 20, HUD announced that it would dramatically reduce the advance notice it provides to public housing authorities (PHAs) and private owners of HUD-subsidized apartment developments for inspections. HUD’s new standard provides PHAs and private owners 14 days’ notice before an inspection, a shift from current notice which can frequently extend up to four months.
Read HUD’s notice.

Lawmakers in Washington reached a deal to fund the federal government for the remainder of the 2019 fiscal year, which runs until October 1. The President signed the bill today, February 15, after it passed both the Senate and House yesterday evening, February 14, with veto-proof majorities.